News has leaked that U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) uses China’s APSTAR-7 satellite for transmitting some of its communications, which means some American military communications are passing through Chinese satellites. There are probably two reasons for this. In the first place, the U.S. military is a massive bandwidth user. The various …
The United States and the People’s Republic of China will hold the 2011 version of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) this coming Monday and Tuesday in Washington. Many distinguished people will participate, many well-crafted speeches will be given, many valuable topics will be discussed, and little of long-term economic …
As the People’s Republic of China (PRC) convenes its National People’s Congress, much attention has been focused on the announcement that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has returned to the long-term trend of double-digit increases in its budget. Where China officially spent 533.5 billion renminbi ($81.2 billion) in 2010, it …
This week, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is also vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), which oversees the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), met with General Khalid Wynne, Chairman of Pakistan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. The meetings, and associated announcements, underscore the close security relationship between …
There are now reports that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has dispatched an airliner to Athens, to assist in any possible evacuation of Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese persons from Libya. This is in addition to the dispatch of Chinese merchant ships and even fishing boats. These efforts are …
The Department of the Treasury today updated its figures on foreign holders of Treasury bonds. The update appears to show that Chinese holdings of Treasuries fell slightly last year. This is nonsense. The PRC accumulated $471 billion in surplus foreign exchange in 2010. Under Beijing’s own balance-of-payment rules, that money …
In sharp contrast to this year’s Pentagon report on Chinese military power, this year’s report from Congress’s U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission includes a number of startling revelations. Perhaps the most notable is the report that the Chinese diverted 15 percent of global Internet traffic to Chinese servers at …
The Obama administration has decided to terminate the suspensions of issuance of temporary munitions export licenses for exports regarding C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft that will be used in oil spill response operations at sea that might involve the People’s Republic of China (PRC). That’s bureaucratese for lifting restrictions on the …
